Are Local Industry Events the New Social Media?

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

I love social media marketing. I discovered, quite by accident, that I am actually pretty good at it, too. It all started about five years ago, when marketing was unexpectedly thrust upon me in order to support my sales efforts, while working for a small PCB manufacturer in Southern California. Until then, I had no experience with social media platforms apart from posting the occasional family photo on Facebook. So I dug in, learned how to use the tools, and worked hard at turning some much needed attention our way. Surprisingly, it worked! (I call myself the “accidental marketer”).

Over time, my skills grew; I read books, attended webinars and learned from the pros until I tamed the mysterious creature that is social media. I have continued to manage Zentech Manufacturing’s social media efforts, since joining the Baltimore base CM just over a year ago, and it remains a fun and challenging part of my professional life. However, just as electronics technology is never static— social media, and the way we interact with it, is always evolving.

Over the past several years, I’ve watched our collective attention span shrink from around 10 minutes to mere milliseconds due to the incessant deluge of information that comes crashing our way through electronic devices daily. We’re flooded and fatigued. Worse than that, I’ve noticed a rise in workplace isolation as we have become enslaved to our screens 24/7. Even when surrounded by people, we hunch helplessly over our smartphones all day to retrieve urgent emails or texts—but only when we’re not anchored to a desk and a computer.

Read the article here.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2015 issue of The PCB Magazine.